


Chances

by Corpium



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Claudia Stilinski, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Frontotemporal Dementia, M/M, Neurological Disorders, No More Dead Moms, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 01:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3918646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corpium/pseuds/Corpium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia is still alive (and sick) when Stiles and Scott search for a body in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chances

**Author's Note:**

> I researched frontotemporal dementia, but I have no first-hand experience with it, and since the symptoms of the disorder can be so varied from case to case, the accuracy of this may be limited.
> 
> Also, remember how in season 1 when Stiles and Peter were on the lacrosse field 'fighting' over Lydia's body and Stiles said, "Just kill me. I don't care anymore"? I'll be playing with that a lot, but I'm not sure if it warrants the "suicidal thoughts" tag since it's not that different from the show.
> 
> ***Please don't add/rate this on goodreads or copy/duplicate this outside of personal use.

After Stiles’ father drops him off back home with a promise not to search for any more dead bodies, his mother rolls up to the door in her wheelchair, a crushed bag of Cheetos in her lap. “You’re sup… sup….” She stalls, and Stiles knows she means to say ‘You’re supposed to,’ but even simple words elude her, nowadays. “You should be in bed,” she amends. ‘Świ…” She groans in wordless frustration and rubs her forehead. “Świ—tom... Święt—”

Świętomierz, she named him, after her grandfather. But now, five years after her diagnosis, she can’t even pronounce it. He takes a deep breath. “Stiles, Mom,” he says, stopping in the doorway, the rush of the adventure long-lost to the stuttering of his mother’s disease. “Just call me Stiles, remember?” 

“Oh, right. Stiles.” She smiles up at him, lips orange with the chemical-ridden crumbs of her late-night snack. 

Hearing his dad drive away to continue the search for the body, Stiles steps up to his mother and takes the handles of her wheelchair. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

“Oh, I’m fine,” she assures him. 

He rolls her towards the kitchen anyway. “No, _Stiles_ , I’m fine,” she hisses. She grabs the wheels of her wheelchair, the movement of her arms a jerking mess, and tries to pull them to a stop, getting Cheeto dust all over the brims. Stiles lets go, worried she’ll rub her palms raw against the rubber.

It’s not worth fighting her, he’s learned from experience, so he walks into the kitchen by himself. The pantry cupboard doors hang open, and bags of crackers, cans of soup, and boxes of pasta noodles and the like have spilled out across the floor. An open box of Cheerios lies sideways on the table. So much for Stiles’ breakfast.

He steps over the mess, grabs a washcloth and wets it, then returns to his mother. He holds the washcloth towards her. “Do you wanna clean yourself up?”

His mother shrugs, glazed, unblinking eyes gazing past him. 

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he murmurs. He places a gentle hand on the side of her head and wipes off her mouth, then folds the washcloth in half. He takes her left hand in his and turns it over. Scrubs off her palm and fingertips. Moves onto the right hand and repeats the action. Except for the rise and fall of her lungs, she barely moves.

And then he tries to take the bag of Cheetos, and her hand clamps onto his wrist. “No,” she snarls. “This is mine.”

Stiles holds still, adrenaline rushing. He swallows. “The bag is empty,” he says carefully.

Her grip on him loosens, and she blinks. “Is it?”

He nods.

“Oh.” She releases him. “Okay.”

Stiles takes the bag away and takes it into the kitchen. He throws it away and leans against the counter, staring sightlessly into the darkness outside the window. 

Today’s one of her good days.

 

O~O~O

 

Teaching Scott control and stopping him from killing everyone is… God, there’s no way to describe it. For once, Stiles is doing something right. For once he’s actually helping someone. For once, all his effort finally counts for something. For once, Stiles can make a difference.

The alpha, Stiles can fight and work against. It can chase him down in a high school, and he can insult it to its face and see its eyes narrow and its claws slam against the door in frustration, and that’s…. That’s something, all right.  

You can’t do that to a disease. 

And it makes Stiles wonder. Because a single bite, and now Scott has super strength, speed, endurance, fangs and claws, you name it, but even better? He doesn’t have asthma. And if a werewolf bite can cure asthma, what else can it cure?

It’s torture for Stiles to think about, because in the end the bite might exist, but it’s not a real possibility. He can’t go up to the alpha and say, “Hey, before you maul me, can you do me a favor and bite my mom for me? Also, please don’t turn her into a murderer. That’s not really her thing.” 

Ha. If only.

 

O~O~O

 

He should have paid more attention to her. He got so wrapped up in Scott and werewolves and hunters and possibilities that he didn’t… he didn’t even notice…. 

She used to overeat all the time, and now she can barely swallow.

Instead of being home where she should be, she lies in a hospital bed, the nasal cannulas sitting in her nose blowing oxygen into her shuddering lungs, and Stiles clutches her clammy hand, praying that if he holds on tightly enough, she won’t be able to leave.

“Stiles,” she groans, and it sounds like an insult. “Stop looking at me.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“Why am I here?” She pulls at her drip IV. “I don’t wanna be here.”

“Mom—” he covers her hand, “Mom, stop.” She fights him, and he yanks her weak hand away, using his other hand to steady the IV. “You gotta leave that in. It’ll help you.”

She pulls away and crosses her arms, glaring at him.“I don’t w-want you here. I want Jim.”

“I know, Mom. He’ll be here later, after his shift.”

He reaches out for her again, but she pulls away and turns away from him to face the back wall.

She used to joke around with him and match him wit for wit. Now the mom he remembers has almost disappeared, her brain morphed and disfigured by an unstoppable disease. His own breathing stutters, his lungs straining for air. He run-walks out of the room and leans back against the wall beside the doorway. Drawing his legs up and hiding his face in his knees barely helps.

 

O~O~O

 

Derek nearly scares the life out of Stiles when he gets back home from the hospital, but at least the dude comes in handy when Stiles needs to bribe Danny into tracing the text the Alpha sent during its hunting-teenagers-in-a-high-school scheme. 

And that leads them straight back to the hospital, as if Stiles hasn’t spent enough time there already. He intends to find Melissa, but instead he finds Derek’s uncle, Peter. 

“You must be Stiles,” Peter says, and it hits Stiles like a brick to the face: the alpha’s part human, too. He’s _insane_ , but he can talk and discuss and make actual decisions, and maybe, just _maybe_ , if he doesn’t tear Stiles to pieces first, Stiles’ mother stands a chance….

“Get out of the way,” Derek tells Stiles, and Stiles does. He has to survive this first if he wants his mother to survive later.

 

O~O~O

 

He hits Melissa’s car, and in the back of his head all he can think is that Peter went after Scott’s _mother_. All because he wanted to get to Scott. Why couldn’t he have bitten Stiles? Why couldn’t he have tried to bite Stiles’ mother? _She’s the one who needs it._

But he doesn’t say any of this. He shoves it all into a dusty box in the back of his head and throws away the key because he can’t afford to think of these things. So he laughs off their little fender bender, and Melissa and the cops take it easy on him because they know about his mom, and the whole time Peter’s _listening_ like it’s all so _fucking_ entertaining, and Stiles has never wanted more in his life to beat someone bloody. 

 

O~O~O

 

“I’m taking Lydia to the school dance,” Stiles says. “You remember Lydia, right? I used to talk about her all the time. Red haired, secret genius, queen of the school. She’s amazing, but... I think she’s going with me out of pity. Or maybe Allison blackmailed her into it, also, probably out of pity. The whole town knows about you, you know. They don’t say much, but they’re all a lot nicer… than before. Except for Harris. He’s still an asshole…. You used to yell at me about swearing, you know, even though I learned half the words from you. You were never exactly quiet about your opinions. Still aren’t.” 

Stiles laughs to himself and shifts in his chair, taking a deep breath. “You gotta hang on for me, okay? You’ve fought for so damn long. You can’t let yourself lose to a little lung infection —not to a side effect, of all things. And I think…” He swallows, eyes itching. “I think I’ve found something. Somebody. We might have a chance, so… hang on, Mom. If not for me, for Dad. Hang on for Jim.”

 

O~O~O

 

Peter is so close, but this… _this monster_ who’s savaged Lydia and left her bleeding in the grass —he’d just as likely kill Stiles’ mother as turn her, and Stiles can’t have that. “I’m not just letting you leave her here,” he says. The more Lydia’s blood spills onto the grass, the more Stiles’ hope fades away. 

“You don’t have a choice, Stiles. You’re coming with me,” Peter says, cleaning blood off his mouth with a handkerchief like Stiles and the bleeding girl on the ground don’t mean a damn thing.

And Stiles _can’t do this anymore_. He’s losing Lydia to Peter. He’ll lose Scott to hunters. He’s already lost his mother to inevitability, and it’s too much. It’s just too much. “Just kill me,” he says, he begs. “Look, I don’t care anymore.”

But Peter doesn’t kill him. Instead, he slips his fingers under Stiles’ chin, and after being pushed away by his own mother and pushed away by Lydia and pushed away even by Scott and his own father (the former scared of his own body, the latter brewing in his own grief), that single touch steals the words from Stiles’ throat. Peter brings Stiles up to eye-level, his calculating gaze heavy. “Call your friend. Tell Jackson where she is. That’s all you get,” he says, and with that pittance of an olive branch, Stiles dares to hope.

 

O~O~O

 

The drive to the parking garage is relatively silent as Stiles contemplates his options. He needs to pry a little more, to see exactly how crazy or sane Peter is. The problem is, he’s afraid that if he says anything, Peter’ll maim him in retaliation. 

Eventually, Peter says about Lydia, “Don’t feel bad. If she lives she’ll become a werewolf.” _If_ she lives, Stiles notes. “She’ll be incredibly powerful.”

“Yeah, and once a month she’ll go out of her freakin’ mind and try to tear me apart.” 

“Well, actually, considering she’s a woman, twice a month,” Peter says, which on the one hand means he doesn’t see turning someone as a Serious Issue, but on the other hand, really? A period joke? Stiles’ mother deserves so much better. 

Unfortunately, ‘better’ isn’t an option. If Stiles wants this, he needs to give Peter a good reason to bite his mother. Peter doesn’t exactly seem like the selfless type of guy.

When Peter manhandles Stiles out of the Jeep and says “I got better” like that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for killing his own nurse, Stiles doubts himself all over again. If he’s going to ask this dude to bite his mother, he needs to make sure Peter won’t turn around and kill her as soon as she makes a wrong move, so he nods down at the body and risks speaking. “But she helped you.”

Peter pauses in setting up his laptop and gives Stiles a look. “She wasn’t a good nurse,” he says, and Stiles still doesn’t know what to do with that, so he moves on.

Good news: Peter’s a Mac guy. Stiles’ mom likes Macs. This could work, right? _(God, for all he knows, she’s already dead.)_

Stiles’ mother aside, he still needs to stall Peter. The guy might be the key to saving Claudia Stilinski’s life, but Stiles would rather not help him screw over Scott and Derek, thanks very much. “Look, you still need Scott’s username and password, but I’m sorry, I don’t know them.” 

This does not go over well with Peter, and Stiles worries for his life. “You’re gonna kill people, aren’t you?” he asks as he pulls up the internet.

“Only the responsible ones,” Peter says, which Stiles would, in different circumstances, not interpret as completely awful, but, given the stakes….

“Responsible like your nurse?” 

Peter twitches like he wants to slam Stiles’ face against the trunk again, and Stiles leans away. “Like I said,” Peter says, “she wasn’t a good nurse.” 

And she did aid in Peter’s murdering binge, so maybe, maybe, Peter can still be reasoned with. “Look, if I do this, you have to promise to leave Scott out of it,” Stiles tries. This brings on a speech from Peter about packs, which, really, if Scott was truly on Peter’s side, might actually be meaningful, but in the end, it only makes Stiles realize how delusional and desperate Peter really is…. 

Stiles might be able to work with desperate, but delusional? Not so much. “He’s not gonna help you,” he tells Peter, not that it’ll do any good. 

“Oh, he will,” Peter says, so smug it makes Stiles’ fingers flex. “Because it’ll save Allison.” Stiles’ stomach drops. He hadn’t thought of that. “And you will because it’ll save Scott.” And he’s right. So Stiles complies. And with Peter threatening everyone’s lives left and right, Stiles gives up. Peter won’t care that his mother’s dying. He only cares about his revenge, and all Stiles’ mother would be to him would be a waste of his time. 

He expects Peter to kill him, but then he doesn’t, and Stiles can’t help but wonder if this is some unique form of torture. “So you’re not gonna kill me?” he asks, and he know he should stop himself, but he doesn’t. 

Peter turns toward him and walks forward like Stiles just changed his mind for him, and while Stiles may not want to live with the future, neither does he want to know what it’s like to have his throat torn out. 

“Don’t you understand yet?” Peter asks. “I’m not the bad guy here,”—which, really? He just mauled Lydia _and_ threatened both Scott and Allison. What in the actual fuck.

Stiles has a feeling saying this wouldn’t go over that well, so he goes with “You turn into a giant monster with red eyes and fangs, and you’re not the bad guy here?”

To which Peter responds with, “I like you, Stiles,” which, wait, wait, what? “Since you’ve helped me, I’m going to give you something in return.”

_ What? _

Stiles' heart slams against his chest, and he should say something, he should say it right now, but he _can’tcan’tcan’t_ because God, this can’t actually be happening.  

“Do you want the bite?” Peter asks, and that’s… not what Stiles wants, but God, it’s so close, and Stiles’ heart races even faster. He can hear it in his head.

This is actually happening. How can this be happening? “What?”

“ _Do you want the bite?_ ” Peter asks again, enunciating like Stiles is hard of hearing. “If it doesn’t kill you, and it could—” that’s a bummer, but Stiles’ mom is already dying, so, would it really be so awful? “ **—** you’ll become like us.”

Peter goes on, stepping closer, giving this speech of temptation that, if circumstances were different, might actually be tempting, but instead, it makes Stiles think: If Peter’s putting this much effort into persuading Stiles to take it, then he must really want Stiles in his pack, which means Stiles finally has something Peter wants that’s outside of Scott, and maybe he can use this. His mother might have a chance, and the possibility alone makes him choke on hope.

Peter takes Stiles' wrist in hand, drawing Stiles back to reality, and asks, “Yes or no?” and if those are Stiles’ only options then this really is a brand new form of torture, and his mind runs with possibilities of both the tragic and hopeful varieties, and he wishes he had more time to think, but Peter’s already opening his jaws, his canines lengthening—

“Bitemymom,” Stiles spits out, the words coming out in such a rush that Peter pauses and narrows his eyes at him. “Bite my mom,” Stiles says again, practically panting. “She's dying. Please.” He holds as still as possible, like any movement might dissuade Peter. 

Peter’s face shifts back to human, and he looks at Stiles like he’s something new and fascinating. His mouth curves up. “Oh, now I like you even more.” He eyes Stiles’ wrist and smooths his thumb over it in contemplation. “Let me bite the both of you,” he says, turning his eyes back on Stiles, and fear rises with the hope in Stiles’ chest. “I’ll turn you now, take care of business with Derek, and then I’ll bite your mother.” He tilts his head just so. “If you think she’ll last until then, don’t you think it’s worth it?”

And of course Stiles thinks it’s worth it. There was never truly any question if he did. He just can’t believe he actually has a chance now. It’s almost worse than the certainty that she’ll die for sure, but of course it’s worth it. He nods and breathes, “Yes.”

Peter bites down, and Stiles’ world explodes with pain. He blacks out for a second, then finds himself being maneuvered into the passenger seat of Peter’s dead nurse’s car, acute pain radiating from the bite mark on his wrist. He turns his wrist over, watching as blood drips down his forearm. The pain’s a bitch, but he expected the side effects to be a little more dramatic. 

Peter sits in the driver’s seat and starts the car. He glances at Stiles as he backs out. “Wrap that up before you bleed all over the seats.” 

Stiles blinks and swallows. “Right,” he mumbles. He slips off his tie and wraps it around the marks, tying it in a knot once the mark’s fully covered. He sneaks a glance at Peter. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Peter smiles at him—a truly unnerving sight that makes Stiles’ gut clench. “You? You just sit tight.”

 

O~O~O

 

Peter parks on the road far away from the Hale house and races into the woods before Stiles can get a word out. 

The silence of the forest rings in Stiles’ ears. He can barely believe Peter just—just left him here to do whatever the hell he wants. He feels —heavy, almost, but jittery at the same time. So far, he doesn’t feel like he’s dying, so he’ll take it as a win. His mother, however, might be, and there’s no way that after all this he’s leaving Peter to his own devices. He staggers out of the car, his balance a little off, and then he takes off in Peter’s direction. 

There’s a _pull_ in Stiles’ chest, and he’ll bet his soul it’s a weird werewolf thing drawing him towards Peter. 

He trudges through the woods, his body sluggish and _too hot,_ like a kettle boiling over, until he hears the snarls and crashes of fighting werewolves. He sprints over, tripping over his own feet and passing a terrified Allison, and finds himself in the entrance to the remains of the Hale house, the pull in his chest stronger than ever. Derek and Scott lie on the floor, beaten momentarily, and Peter hunches in the middle of the room, his body contorting.

Kate’s dead body lies beside him, and everything clicks. 

“Peter,” Stiles says, and Peter growls. _Something_ urges Stiles to hunker down and apologize, but budding werewolf or not, that’s never been in Stiles’ nature. “She’s dead, Peter,” he says, an edge to his voice. 

Peter straightens and turns around, eyes drifting past Stiles’ shoulder towards where Stiles knows Allison stands petrified. “You said you only wanted to kill those responsible,” Stiles says, eyes flicking to Kate’s body. He looks back up at Peter. “Was that a lie?”

Peter stalks towards Stiles, and despite every instinct screaming otherwise, Stiles holds his ground, keeping himself planted in the doorway between Peter and Allison. “It was an approximation,” Peter says, stopping in front of Stiles. 

“It was an absolute, and you know it,” Stiles snarls. Actually _snarls_. 

“Stiles?” Scott says, getting to his feet. There’s something broken in his voice. On the opposite side of the room, Derek stares at them with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Peter smiles down at Stiles with too many teeth. His eyes gleam red, and he says, voice unnaturally deep, “Step aside, Stiles.”

Stiles’ knees buckle and shake, his body cramping as he tries to fight the order. “Stiles,” Peter says again, this time curling a hand over the back of Stiles’ neck, and the fight goes out of Stiles like it was never there, heat spreading from Peter’s hand down Stiles’ spine. Stiles steps aside, eyelids heavy. 

Peter hums in approval and gives his neck a gentle squeeze, and Stiles melts into his hold before he can stop himself. 

“Stiles, no,” Scott says from behind Peter, and Stiles hears his hesitant footsteps approaching. 

Peter whirls around and snarls, and Scott’s footsteps halt.

“It’s okay, Scott,” Stiles says, voice shaking. “It’s gonna be okay.” Peter turns back to him, grip still tight on his neck, and Stiles takes a chance and doesn’t fight the urge to push back into it. “We made a deal.”

Peter stares Stiles down until he looks away. “We did,” Peter says, like he’s tasting the words. Apparently he finds them satisfying, because he lowers his hand to Stiles’ back and pushes him forward.

Stiles tenses when they pass Allison, who scrambles away, her eyes flicking between Stiles and Peter, but they pass without incident. 

Peter guides him back towards the car, the hand on Stiles’ back sending heat through him like a pleasant brand, and Stiles wants to ask why it makes him feel that way, but he also so, _so_ doesn’t. 

When they reach the car, Peter pulls Stiles close. “How do you feel?” 

Stiles blinks, fighting to keep his eyes open. “Like I’m not dead yet.”

Peter leans in, nose pressed just behind Stiles’ ear. Stiles closes his eyes and leans into him. He feels inexplicably good, and even with his mind bogged down by murky heat, he knows better than to think about it too much. “You’ll survive,” Peter murmurs, breath tickling Stiles’ neck. 

Peter pulls back and gently brings Stiles’ bitten wrist to his face. He sniffs, and Stiles wants to say it’s gross, but he signed on for this very thing, didn’t he? Peter releases him and says, “It’s not healed yet. That’s good.”

Stiles squints at him, pulled slightly out of his daze. “Why?” 

“I have reason to believe it’ll be useful,” Peter answers without answering, and he urges Stiles into the car.

 

O~O~O

 

Peter’s reason is a good one, it turns out, because when they get to the hospital, Peter tells him to check on Lydia and his father, then to meet back at his mother’s room. 

Lydia’s not dead. She’s asleep, and that’s… well, at least she’s not dead. 

“You expect me to believe a mountain lion did that,” Stiles’ dad says flatly, gesturing at Stiles’ unwrapped bite mark. 

“Yes,” Stiles says, desperation and nervousness cutting through the mental haze emanating from the bite mark. “Because that’s what happened.”

“I can’t believe this.” His dad sighs heavily and drags a hand down his face. “You need to get a rabies shot.” 

 A deputy comes up to him and whispers in his ear, and Stiles kind of can’t wait until his super-hearing makes an appearance. 

"And,” says his dad, letting out an even greater sigh, “I need to check out a disturbance coming from the old Hale property. Wonderful.”

“I’ll go to the emergency room while I’m here,” Stiles says to get his dad to go away. “Or maybe check with Melissa if she has time.” 

“Okay, kid,” his dad says, clapping him on the back. “Just try to stay out of trouble.”

Stiles salutes. “Will do.” He sags with relief as soon as his dad leaves, exhaustion threatening to overwhelm him right there and then. 

Instead, though, he forces himself to make the extensive walk to the long-term care unit, fear of what he might see growing heavier with every footstep. What he finds is neither heartening nor disheartening. 

Peter sits in a chair in the shadows, perhaps not too keen on being discovered as the missing coma patient, and Stiles’ mother lies in her bed, still as ever. Stiles closes the door behind him, and Peter stands up. “Did you bite her?” Stiles asks.

Peter steps towards her and gestures at her side, which is covered by her nightgown, spots of blood bleeding through. He looks up at Stiles, eyes missing the edge they had a mere hour ago. “She’s far gone, Stiles,” he says, almost… almost _sympathetic_ , and that more than anything else makes Stiles’ knees buckle. He grabs onto the edge of her bed for purchase, face crumpling. _They were so close…._

A hand rests on his shoulder. “She might still make it,” Peter says. “But there are years of damage to heal. It’ll be difficult, even if she does turn.” He squeezes Stiles’ shoulder. “You should get some rest. You’ll need it.” 

He moves away from Stiles and pushes the chair up to the backs of Stiles’ knees, and then he leaves, his footsteps silent against the white tiles of the hospital. 

Stiles’ mom’s chest shudders up and down with her rattling breath, the rhythm easy despite her body’s struggles, and Stiles collapses into the chair to hold vigil until exhaustion claims him. 

 

O~O~O

 

He wakes up to a hand stroking his face, its fingers too cold and too pudgy to be Peter’s. He cracks his eyes open, heart racing, and his mother smiles weakly at him, pale sunlight shining down on her. 

“Mom?” he chokes.

She smiles. “Good morning, Świętomierz,” she whispers. 

She can say his name.  _She can say his name._

“Oh, God, Mom.” He lunges in for a hug. She wraps her fragile arms around him, and he buries his face in the crook of her neck. “I missed you so much.”

She laughs weakly. “I missed me, too, kiddo. I’m so sorry.”

“No, no, it’s—” he pulls away and wipes tears off his face. He can't look away from her. “You’re back now. That’s all that matters.”

“Is it?” she asks, brow furrowing. “I had a strange dream last night…” she trails off. “Why am I…. why am I improving? What happened?”

Stomach twisting, Stiles pulls away and falls back into his chair, but she doesn’t let go of his hand. “I didn’t plan this far ahead,” he murmurs. 

“But you did make plans?” she asks, and Stiles doesn’t know what to say. She’s a werewolf now. How do you tell someone that when they probably don’t even remember being bitten? “Stiles, Świętomierz, I recognize that face. I need to know."

He wrings his hands together, drawing his attention to his wrist, unmarked where the bite used to be. He glances up at his mom. “I’m gonna get Scott here so he can help out with this one.”

Her brow furrows even further, as if she’s more worried for his sanity than her own, which, really, given the circumstances, is totally unwarranted. “Okay," she says at last. "Tell me about your father, then. How is he?”

Stiles grins a little. “Stressed.” 

She laughs. “Of course he is.”

 

O~O~O

 

Half a month later, his mother isn’t thrilled to meet Peter. She’s been moved back into 24-hour medical care at the house, (“House-arrest, Świętomierz. They put me under house-arrest like it's a crime to be a medical anomaly.") and though she’s home and standing, she’s still weak on her feet. She spends the whole time acting as a wobbly shield between Peter and Stiles, and on the full moon she acts as Stiles’ personal body guard, growling and snarling at Peter whenever he gets within ten feet of Stiles. It’s weird, especially since Stiles has been playing caretaker to her for the last five or so years, but apparently Peter finds it “oddly endearing,” and nobody tries to kill anyone, so Stiles counts it as a win.

Stiles’ father, meanwhile, is still figuring out what to make of the situation. Since he’s not shooting Peter in the face, Stiles counts that as a win, too. 

 

O~O~O

 

Peter meets Stiles after lacrosse practice near the end of the year. “I was wondering when you’d try to get me alone,” Stiles says by way of greeting. “What’s up?” 

“I’m going to disappear for a while,” Peter says, leaning back against his own car, parked besides the Jeep. 

“Yeah, what for?”

“To recover some family artifacts, fetch my missing niece, visit some old acquaint—”

“Hold on. ‘Fetch your missing niece’? You have a missing niece?”

Peter nods. “Cora. I thought she died with everyone else, but records show otherwise.”

“Are you sure they just, uh, didn’t find her, you know, remains?” Subtlety has never been Stiles’ forte. 

Peter lifts an eyebrow. At least he appreciates bluntness. “I think she’s been sighted in South America, so no, I don’t think that's it.” 

Stiles rubs the back of his neck. “Well, that’s, uh, good of you, Peter. But why tell me here....? You’re not trying to get me to come with you, are you? Because while you’ve kinda grown on me in a it’s-fun-to-watch-my-parents-torment-you sorta way, I’m not really down for any cross-country adventures with you.”

Peter smirks and steps into Stiles’ space, and Stiles' breath catches. “I know,” Peter says, cupping Stiles’ cheeks. Stiles stiffens as warmth and affection and _Peter_ floods his senses. It’s been so long since Peter’s touched him. “I came here to do this,” Peter says, and he pushes Stiles back against the Jeep and presses their mouths together, nipping and sucking at Stiles’ lower lip, hands sliding down Stiles’ sides. Nerves ablaze, Stiles pulls Peter closer and clumsily kisses back, letting Peter slip his leg between his own. Peter’s tongue sweeps Stiles’ mouth just enough to offer a taste, and then he pulls back, lips tugged up into a satisfied grin. 

Stiles blinks as he gets his breath back. He shakes his head and pulls his hands away, crossing his arms. “They’re gonna kill you,” he says matter-of-factly. 

“I’ll be flying out of the country by the time they find out,” Peter says all too smugly. The grin shifts into sincerity. “I’ll miss all of you. You’re certainly something.”

“I’m… glad?”

Peter smiles and cups Stiles’ face again, this time to press a soft kiss to his forehead. “I’ll come back when your father can’t legally arrest me for fucking you.”

Stiles coughs on air. “What?”

Peter pulls back and opens the door to his car. “You heard me.”

He winks at Stiles like the creep he is when he drives away, leaving Stiles gaping in his wake. 

A year later, he drops Cora off to live with Derek, and another year later he returns on Stiles' 18th birthday. He makes good on his promise, and Stiles laughs when his mother hobbles him at the knees. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback gives me life :) and concrit is welcome as well


End file.
